I grew up on a dairy farm in Co. Wicklow, on Ireland’s east coast, overlooking the Irish Sea. I’m still at my happiest when surrounded by countryside, animals and close to a water’s edge.

A horse-mad child, I dreamed of one day working with horses. After school, I earned a degree in Equine Business and worked in various sectors of the horse industry. But over time, I became disillusioned by its realities and could no longer imagine a future in it.

I continued at university and finished with an Honours Degree in Business. The next few years passed in a blur as I muddled through my twenties—briefly working for one of the big Irish banks, then as a recruitment consultant, before completing an MSc in Human Resource Management.

After my Master’s, I was offered an opportunity to do a PhD in Social Sciences at a university in London—and I jumped at the chance. It was there, as part of my PhD research, that I discovered my love for qualitative and storytelling research methods. Exploring how the stories we tell shape our realities has been at the heart of my work and research ever since.

When I finished my PhD in 2018, I moved to Edinburgh, Scotland. There, I worked for several years as the sole social scientist within a Farm Animal Welfare and Behaviour Research Group. It was a fascinating and meaningful role where I was able to put my qualitative, social, and cultural research skills to good use, exploring how human beliefs and behaviours influence the lives of farmed animals.

In 2020, alongside my job in academia, I set up The Women of Ireland Project. What began as a passion project—an area where I felt I could use my qualitative research skills to illuminate the lived experiences of the women of Ireland—soon became a full-time pursuit. Struggling to manage the workload of my day job while undertaking the huge task of interviewing and analysing the life stories of nearly 40 women, I decided to follow my heart and quit my job.

Since 2022, I have worked as an independent researcher, bringing together all the skills I’ve built up over more than a decade as a qualitative researcher, social scientist, and cultural theorist. I now specialise in oral history research, where my interests lie in uncovering the stories—the dominant narratives—we carry, where they come from, and how they shape us. While I’m mostly drawn to the intersections of Irish society, culture, and womanhood, my work is broad and varied. Heart-led and scientifically rooted, I simply follow the path that lights me up the most!